I asked Walter Isaacson, the new president of CNN, how he felt about being called a sinner. "Whatever, I hadn't seen that," he said.

Isaacson was in Washington recently, shmoozing mostly with Republican leaders on the Hill and Bush White House officials.

Conservatives such as Tom DeLay -- who has boycotted CNN for the past year -- have long derided Ted Turner's baby as the "Clinton News Network" and "Communist News Network." (That was before it became Chandra News Network.)

Then Tuesday, USA Today's Peter Johnson reported that CNN was courting Limbaugh, "who makes upwards of $30 million a year bashing liberal Democrats."

Despite the fact that CNN has also flirted with Phil Donahue and James Carville, conservatives and the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, were taking Isaacson's moves as an admission that CNN is, as Ailes jokes, "168 hours a week tipping to the left and Bob Novak."

Many news executives from other networks think Isaacson is wasting his time pandering to conservatives, who won't watch his network anyway, and merely giving the impression he will sacrifice objectivity to improve ratings.

The CNN chief dismisses the idea that he is being especially solicitous of Republicans. "We've talked to a dozen folks with a wide variety of views to be part of our commentary mix," he said. "But CNN will remain scrupulously nonpartisan and nonideological. My theory is we're in a period in which the '90s partisan battles have receded and things are less bitter and there's less shouting on TV."

DeLay's aides said he would come back to CNN for Rush, but a Bush official thought Rush would be an inadequate "silver bullet." "Walter should look in the mirror," the official said. "He's theveryculture--theBronxville-Manhattan-cafe-latte-glitterati-honored-by-Tina-and-Harry crowd -- that conservatives want changed at CNN. It's putting the problem in charge of the problem."

Some TV critics say Fox has soared because it is more sprightly and conservative, and conservatives love to hear their own views echoed back at them loudly and endlessly.

Owned by Rupert Murdoch and run by Ailes, the former Reagan and Bush 41 ad wizard, Fox News is beloved by GOP officials and is drawing ratings so enviable that Fox executives privately crow that conservatives will now have the power to "re-position journalism in America."

"Ted Turner created a whole world where conservatives were all crazy wackos, a world according to New York and L.A. and D.C. cocktail parties, a godless, family-less world," said one aide to a top conservative congressman. "Walter Isaacson doesn't care in his heart if he's being fair to conservatives or doing good journalism, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is that CNN is getting killed by Fox. So now CNN has to pay attention not only to the blue states but to the red states, the whole middle of America."

The conservatives, who already disdained Turner for calling Christianity "a religion for losers," for giving a billion to the dread United Nations and for opening a bureau in Cuba, took a dim view when he dumped Hanoi Jane Fonda just as she discovered Christianity. (He has now been brutally dumped by AOL Time Warner.)

"It must have shocked the liberals at CNN when the first two moves Walter made were to visit Trent Lott and call Rush Limbaugh," Ailes said slyly. "This will be the first time in history a network news president will have to travel with a security detail inside the building."

So here it is, folks: The Cable/Clinton/Communist/Chandra/Conserva tive/Christian News Network.